


Fillin’ Up My Bullshit Meter

by HardlyWaters, orphan_account



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Blackwatch Era, M/M, Trolling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:06:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27159058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HardlyWaters/pseuds/HardlyWaters, https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: There’s twilight peeking through the blinds at one-more-post-mission-form-until-completion-o'clock, and he’s cold, and the mug steam-irons his face, so naturally when he turns the corner, there’s a pair of incandescent headlights bleeding at him so red, red, red it could drown out all the blood on his hands."I was told to turn up the brightness," says Genji, "lest I startled people."
Relationships: Jesse McCree & Genji Shimada, Jesse McCree/Genji Shimada
Comments: 2
Kudos: 31





	Fillin’ Up My Bullshit Meter

It hurt to keep the lights on; so they’re not. It almost hurts to blink. He whistles aimless tunes that come out much too whispery, and randomly jabs buttons on the coffee machine.

There’s twilight peeking through the blinds at one-more-post-mission-form-until-completion-o'clock, and he’s cold, and the mug steam-irons his face, so naturally when he turns the corner, there’s a pair of incandescent headlights bleeding at him so red, red, red it could drown out all the blood on his hands.

McCree doesn’t make a sound.

No scream, no gasp from his open mouth, yet the mug still sets sail in a storm of cappuccino froth for all the ice-water in his veins.

Genji, naturally, leans back to dodge, and proudly refuses to catch anything.

"I was told to turn up the brightness," he says, at the resulting offended eyebrows while the mug clanks itself against the fridge, "lest I startled people."

"Good job," says McCree, strategically tipping his hat downwards. At the very least he was further awake now, even without the caffeine he’d been waiting on. His poor, poor caffeine, spilt away so innocent and young…

Well, in any case, problem solved?

"Yes," Genji nods, if only by a little, "I have a question, by the way. “

“A question?” drawls McCree, voice distorting mid-yawn. He moves to stretch out his back, only to find that Genji has teleported a great many inches closer before he’s managed to close his mouth. There is no escaping the optic blast, or the impossibility of pupil adjustment.

“Alright Genji,” he grits out, “Thank you for the blindness, but if you’d kindly—”

“Tell me why you’ve been lying to me, McCree,” says the ninja, tone remarkably casual.

McCree relaxes his body on instinct, his lazy gaze narrowing and softening into a trademark squint. What the hell was going on? Had he been lying to Genji? He likes to think he has a pretty good grip on not accidentally pissing off the person with the foot-knives, but apparently all it takes is grabbing a midnight snack from the kitchenette and— _oh._

"Is this about the Pocky?” he says, lips spreading slowly into a smile that reaches the eyes, his face an image of complete confidence, “‘Cause I ain't touched your Pocky.” 

It’s likely a bad idea to continue in the face of utter unresponsiveness, but he can’t help himself. “It’s probably Fio blaming me for her crimes again,” he sniffs, ending on a faint snort. “You know how it is, and Lord knows she's none too pleased with my poker debts."

Genji’s eye-beams narrow into lasers, "I see."

"Right, well. Good night. Or morning,” says McCree, making an effort not to tread upon the corpse of his previous drink.

He’s just about reached the broom closet for a mop when something cold-hard-sharp digs itself into his shoulder, spinning him into the wall ass-first. He pauses for a beat to congratulate himself on [his own thick cushioning](https://www.reddit.com/r/OverwatchUniversity/comments/jg510c/new_experimental_patch_october_22_2020/) before Genji’s face swims into view, shoulders tensing like a cat curling to swing. _Maybe he was really hungry?_

"Did you know," says Genji, a muffled whirring starting up in his vents, "that Fio is deathly allergic to Sakura Almond Crush? It is the only flavour I had left." His untweezed eyebrows crinkle as he settles into a stance unnaturally still; McCree mirrors him, in memory of particularly good experiences playing freeze dance. 

"Nor does she imbibe in any form to explain why my supply is steadily being replaced by Pocky packets filled with nothing but strangely expensive brands of blunts," says Genji, impatience having clearly won out.

McCree looks at him, his default squint getting squintier by the second. The corner of his lip twitches until he pulls a sharp intake of breath. "Why, I never knew—” he finally bursts out, eyes glazing over in starry, touched wonderment, “Our star pilot approves of high noons!"

There’s a flickering in Genji’s pupils like a dying moth; his headlights finally shut themselves off. A different kind of grinding noise starts up from his neck— the one which plays whenever he scrubs his audio-logs, if McCree were to hazard a guess.

"I also couldn't help but wonder," continues Genji, words hard and flat before the noise fully passes, "why it wasn't five minutes after your usual spiel on my scars being 'distinguished' that I heard you beg the commander not to have to look at me.” The grip on McCree’s shoulder swiftly crawls to the side of his neck.

“The last time we trained,” he clarifies, when all McCree offers is a bewildered glance. “Something about me 'giving you problems', you said." 

"Problems?" mouths McCree, eyeing up the metal fingers clawing right into him. What problems? They don’t feel like a bad thing, actually, even if they hurt a bit. He wonders if they'd leave marks. Be nice to have some bruises to remember him by after his forty-hour-day on a mild bender. 

Genji breaks away, and outright snarls at him. "Say what you really think to my face, you coward," he snaps, not loudly, more hissing through his teeth, because thinking too long about things to do with grip strength is apparently a bad idea.

McCree’s voice shudders with a laugh, "Oh, that.” His breezy reply comes trapped in as thick of an accent as McCree can think to produce. “You made me dizzy."

He removes his hat with a quick spin on the way down, making to be polite as one does when indoors. "I was pretty drunk, and pretending not to be, and you moved so fast it gave me the ol' vertigo." 

“Is that so,” says Genji, coiling himself even tighter.

“Yeah, you strike faster than green grass through a goose on the regular. That then was just a blur.” 

"Which explains all the targets you hit moving even faster than me while you were drunk, high, or a lot of other things you've been since we met."

McCree simply tilts his head back to shoot him an unimpressed look, right under the shadow of his lashes. "When a man gets old enough to creak somethin’ fierce in the knee on ‘em rainy days…" He pauses to pat said body part for emphasis, "you gotta account for individual variances in his lifespan. ‘Specially when—" 

"I am, actually," interrupts Genji, who seems to have dropped his posture of imminent maiming all of a sudden. He crosses his arms and leans into the cabinet left of where the kitchen island used to exist. 

"Individual variant," he voices. "For example, why are you holding your hat out like that?" He cocks his head in the general direction of McCree's crotch, and McCree curses rapidly under his breath. Lesser men may have squirmed. 

"Listen,” says McCree with a brief wince, annoyed to be caught out, “when I said you were dizzying, I meant that I get a little too happy to see you sometimes."

He clears his throat, surreptitiously avoiding looking down as much as he can, and winds up settling his eyes somewhere near Genji’s left tit. "You get distracted in practice, you learn to be distracted, you get killed. Just thought I could use some space when I started landing shots on targets I wasn't aiming at. That’s all." 

"McCree," says Genji in an odd tone, with some level of impatience.

"No one says you gotta return my feelings or anything, but if you could just spare me some dignity," says McCree, trying to scoot sideways and angle past the nearest table. He’s blocked, first by Genji, and then a wakizashi as he takes a side-step. 

A clear sign of rejection then, thinks McCree, steeling himself to counter a stabbing.

Quick as a flash, Genji snatches at his hat, pulling McCree’s arm along with him as he maintains his grip, and McCree explodes into action. He slams his other arm up on the table for balance, and kicks out with his right leg, extended arm winding back to clothesline Genji at the same time in the opposing direction. 

It is at this point, however, that he remembers that the table is a fold-out; a temporary replacement for the kitchen island someone smashed-in the week prior.

It topples merrily underneath his weight as the hat slips from his hand and they both watch, sprawled on the ground, as his beloved headwear turns itself right-side up in the air, dropping a worryingly familiar box of limited edition, seasonal release Pocky. With a short bounce off of his ear, it dives into the middle of the ex-coffee. _Splat!_

McCree resists the urge to bash his head repeatedly on the upturned table, but only just. No one was ever supposed to prove anything. And he’s definitely not on tilt because some unnamable part of his chest is up in flames.

The rustle of a blade being sheathed turns his head, and his hand comes off of the holster, where it had inevitably migrated to. _Really, when had he last felt threatened by such an obvious feint?_

“Nothing to say for yourself?” Genji makes a small sound of amusement.

“Kinda bored with the whole feigned ignorance routine now if ‘m honest,” sighs McCree, suddenly tired all over again; he’s more than ready to just call it a day and roll back to bed. He rolls his shoulder in a way that cracks a little, and reaches for his lighter in lieu of getting up. “What, you want an apology?” 

"Perhaps," says Genji, as he once again closes the distance. He nudges McCree’s thighs further apart with a foot, and pulls one of the blunts McCree gave him out of seemingly nowhere.

McCree lights it obligingly, expression nonplussed as he considers the way Genji is eyeing him between the legs. If he wasn’t hallucinating, he’d say it must be a nice view after all, that one bulging truth from the entire conversation. 

In his next blink, a metallic-filtered voice starts up in his ear. "Perhaps, I could simply teach you how to learn from your mistakes."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to "createdtoplay" for proofreading.
> 
> Also Lily, who has removed herself, for writing half a sentence.


End file.
